SUSAN 's Profole

BIOGRAPHY

Susan is a singer and entertainer based in Japan. She has starred in musicals and presented TV shows, made many appearances in commercials and is now re-establishing herself as a
performer of techno-pop music. Susan has recently made links with young fashion designers in Japan and she is working to popularise the Japanese Gothic Lolita style in a more sophisticated way. A resident of Fukuoka in Southern Japan, Susan regularly visits Tokyo, where she has a second home in the Shibuya district.

Susan was born Susan Nozaki in Japan. Her mother was Japanese, her father a US serviceman with French ancestry. Susan looks very European in her publicity photographs, but in person she seems very Japanese, because of her mannerisms and her tone of voice.

At an early age Susan became interested in performing on stage, making her professional debut at the age of 14. She was scouted by the top management company, Watanabe Productions in Japan and signed to King Records. Susan's first single, released when she was 16 years old, was “Onna No Jikan”, a number first performed by the French singer Sylvie Vartan. She was marketed with a “girl next door” image. Susan also won an award at the Yamaha Song Festival in the 1970s.

Susan later concentrated on acting and singing in musicals. Her first leading role was in “Sweet Charity”. That led to offers of work on TV as a personality, most notably on the show “Waratte Waratte 60 Minutes” where she worked with entertainer Kei Tani and musician Haruo Chikada. She also acted in several TV dramas. Under the name Susy Shiratori, Susan recorded a duet with comedian Masao Komatsu, the track released by Warner Music Japan.

Susan appeared in many TV commercials during the 1970s and 80s; Shiseido "Perky Jean" (the music was a collaboration with Ryuichi Sakamoto), Suntory "Nama Taru" beer,
Suzuki cars, Morinaga "Chocolate Flakes",
McDonalds,
Sanyo, JR Tokai and
Bic Camera. Susan also promoted the Sony cassette tape “Live Capsule”, on film and in song. She worked as a model, featuring in high-profile print and poster campaigns for Shiseido “Chiffonet”. In total, Susan has appeared in, performed voiceovers for or sung for over 250 advertisements.

In 1980, Yukihiro Takahashi from the Yellow Magic Orchestra met Susan at a TV studio and was impressed by her energetic personality. This led to her re-launching her career as a pop singer. Yukihiro and Susan collaborated with co-producer Kenji Omura on an album “Do You Believe In Mazik?” which was released by Epic/Sony.

The material on the album demonstrates the level of excitement that Susan and her accompanying musicians had about the possibilities that music was giving them at the time. The album is experimental, intriguing and sometimes challenging, but all of the songs have hook-laden tunes that benefit from repeated listening. You can also dance to a lot of the album! Susan's performances match the excellent musicianship as she is allowed to sing in a range of styles, acting in a sense, foreshadowing the more challenging work of Bjork and Jun Togawa.

The album featured all three YMO members (Haruomi Hosono, Ryuichi Sakamoto and Takahashi), Kenji Omura, Makoto Kubota (Sandii & The Sunsetz) and Hajime Tachibana (The Plastics). Shigeru Umebayashi from the band EX also appeared, and he became Susan's right-hand man for all of her live performances. Susan returned the favour and appeared on his solo recordings.

By 1981 it was decided to launch Susan in Europe. She took part in a campaign alongside Ippu-Do, Sandii & The Sunsetz and YMO to promote Japanese pop music in the West. The campaign was called “Music from the land of the Rising Sun” and achieved a lot of press in the UK, Spain, France, Germany and Holland. The groups had a compilation album released in the UK by Sounds magazine called “Band's Eye View”.

Susan's track “24,000 Times of Kiss” was included on the NME “Mad Mix” cassette, and the song was released as a single in Italy. In France, the launch single was “Do You Believe In Magic?” and in the UK “Dream of You”.

The same year Susan recorded her second album with the YMO members, called “The Girl Can't Help It”. This time, guest musicians included Masami Tsuchiya (Ippu-Do/Japan), Shigeru Umebayashi and Sandii. The material on this album uses a mixture of styles, from updated versions of the Motown sound to New Wave rock to a sophisticated electronic Parisian sound on “Nuit De St Germain”. The album closes with the techno-pop epic “My Love” with layered vocal lines performed by Susan with Yukihiro Takahashi. The song has everything − precise, but live, drums and percussion that would not have been out of place on Japan's “Tin Drum”, delicate sequencer lines that provide a backbone for the track, atmospheric guitar and more. It is innovative and also a very easy song to get to know, with lyrics in English and Japanese, allowing the meaning to be understood by a wider audience than most Japanese pop music.

A big launch event was planned for Susan in the UK in early 1982. Her mother gave her a very beautiful kimono to wear for the various TV appearances that had been arranged and a single version of “I Only Go Out At Night” was released. Unfortunately, this coincided with the outbreak of hostilities between the UK and Argentina over the Falkland Islands. Travel to the UK was not recommended for a short time and the reluctant decision was made to cancel. Susan was very disappointed.

In the 1980s Susan married a member of Sheena & The Rokkets and had a daughter. She decided to care for her family and stayed away from the limelight for a number of years. The Rokkets were a very busy touring band and Susan needed to look after her daughter. Susan would occasionally make guest appearances at techno-pop events in Tokyo, but she did not perform in public again until 2004, when she won a role in ‘The Manhattan Princess'. This coincided with Sony's decision to release ‘The Complete Susan'.

The collection “The Complete Susan” was a release requested by fans for many years. In the 1990s there was a lot of discussion on websites about what the collection could include and to many fans joy it includes not only both albums but all of the single A and B sides which had not been available on CD before.

Susan was very happy that her daughter was able to listen the collection. She decided to fully support album release, developing her own online presence and appearing the media. The release of “The Complete Susan” also gave her an opportunity to play live once more. A show in Tokyo was a great success, and was attended by Yukihiro Takahashi, Masami Tsuchiya, photographer friend Masayoshi Sukita as well as many fans. Many more were able to see selections from the show on the Internet.

Since Summer 2005 Susan has been performing live, developing fashion lines and working on new material and new arrangements of previous recordings with Hisashi Saito.

Paul Rymer 2006.

Paul Rymer
A music reporter living in England with a longtime interest in Japanese music.
He has written about Japanese pop music online, and contributed to the
NME (New Musical Express) and Record Collector magazines.

Paul has been managing the JAPAN website "Nightporter" for the last ten years.

He has worked for Virgin/EMI and Sony BMG on their JAPAN remastered album projects.

PROFILE

Made her debut at age 14 as a pop singer.
She was very talented artist as a model,movie and TV drama actress,musical singer and radio personality etc.
She was scouted by the top management company, Watanabe Productions in Japan.
She was called the singer of RAINBOW VOICE.
She had lot of chances of performing variety of entertainment activities.

DISCOGRAPHY

70's : Single "ONNA NO JIKAN" by King Records

1981 : Album "DO YOU BELIEVE IN MAZIC" by Epic Sony
The album was released in Europe, UK, France, Belgium, Holland, Germany, Denmark. ,Sweden etc total 9 countries.

70's : Joined the band SUPER MAEKET with Kei Tani and Haruo Chikada.
They had a regular TV variety show on TBS "WARATTE WARATTE 60 MINUTES".
70's : Duet as Susy Shiratori with comedy artist Masao Komatsu.